Mechanical Simulation releases 2018.1 version of vehicle simulations

With software from Mechanical Simulation increasingly used for ADAS and AV testing, the vehicle dynamics simulation provider has released a new version sooner than usual to keep up with the demands this emerging field places on simulation.

CarSim, TruckSim and BikeSim have been updated to allow more vehicles, operating under more conditions, and include more interactions with pedestrians and other vehicles. Simulations can now be run with the many built-in controllers in thousands or even millions of simulations.

The simulation tools can now also include multiple 3D road surfaces, other vehicles and possibly pedestrians and animals, thanks to many new animation resources, such as walking pedestrians, pedalling cyclists and running animals. There are new road surfaces, paint markings, road signs, and other “props” that appear along a road.

A key feature of the new release is the addition of a number of scenario-building tools and supporting resources. The Atlas tool can now use GPS altitude, in addition to latitude and longitude when downloading data.

Smoothing and editing of data when importing GPS data into CarSim, TruckSim and BikeSim have been improved, and there are usability improvements in VS Scene Builder, such as undo and redo functions, access to global X-Y coordinates in scene, and the ability to drag and drop animator assets into the scene.